The present invention relates to the field of paint mixing, particularly machines for mixing paint in retail-sized containers, most particularly to those machines which spin the paint container on more than one axis.
In the past, paint has been uniformly sold in the United States at the retail level in one gallon cylindrical cans or containers. Certain prior art paint mixers were designed for mixing custom colors of paint in such one gallon cylindrical containers, using both orbital and spinning motion with the cylindrical container held at an angle during paint mixing operation. Recently paint has become available in a square or rectangular shaped polymer container which has a handle molded integrally into one corner of the container for the painter's convenience in pouring paint from the rectangular container. This new design of paint container results in a significant imbalance (because of the void created with the molded handle) when the paint container is subject to the orbital and spinning motion desirable for paint mixing. When prior art mixers were attempted to be used with the rectangular paint container, unacceptable vibration resulted.
The present invention is useful to mix paint in such rectangular paint containers as well as in conventional cylindrical paint cans. The present invention overcomes the unacceptable vibration observed with rectangular containers during the orbital and spinning motion desirably used to mix paint, while still retaining the ability to mix paint in traditional cylindrical metal paint cans or containers.